“What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans,” comedian Norm Macdonald tweeted in 2016. “Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?”

In the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, the West has witnessed an explosion of antisemitism in response to the notion of Jewish self-defense. This antisemitism has predictably grown beyond the comparatively tame instances of on-campus hounding of Jewish students, healthcare workers “joking” about mistreating Jewish patients, or the display of a “F*** The Jews” sign at your local nightclub.

Recommended Stories

• The 'big, beautiful bill' protects Medicaid for those who need it
• The lasting impact of one of the Left’s most hated men
• Anti-IVF advocates make all the right moves

Calls to “globalize the intifada” have been taken literally, such as in the firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor’s residence in Harrisburg, the execution of a soon-to-be-engaged couple outside a Jewish museum in Washington, and the burning alive of Jews in Boulder, Colorado, all under the proud chant of “Free Palestine.”

It’s almost like “resistance by any means necessary” means “resistance by any means necessary.”

Many responses have been darkly laughable, with one particular highlight being USA Today’s attempt to garner sympathy for the family of the illegal immigrant jihadist suspect in Boulder with: “Boulder suspect’s daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation.” Don’t worry, they have medical schools in Egypt.

But there’s something else going on here that we must wholeheartedly reject: the same equivocation Macdonald predicted in 2016.

“National crime data shows the Boulder attack came amid a dramatic increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes across the nation,” ABC News reported. Now, you’d think that antisemitism and so-called Islamophobia are on equal footing based on this headline. After all, why else would Harvard University release its reports on antisemitism and Islamophobia on the same day?

Well, after scrolling to the 20th paragraph of the ABC report, passing detail after detail about concrete violent attacks against Jews, amounting to 10,000 reported antisemitic incidents in the United States since Oct. 7, 2023, you’ll reach the claim that “Islamophobic attacks have also been on the rise.”

The source? The Council on American-Islamic Relations report on its number of complaints received, of which 15.4% related to alleged employment discrimination, 14.8% related to alleged immigration or asylum issues, and 9.8% related to alleged education discrimination, including those who faced consequences for calling for the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews, which the CAIR describes as being anti-genocide.

Alleged hate crimes make up a total of 647 complaints, or 7.5% of the total. While any legitimate cases of hate crimes should be condemned and punished to the fullest extent of the law, the notion that antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate are equal problems in the U.S. is absurd, no matter how much the CAIR pads the numbers as part of an deliberate strategy to use the rise of antisemitism to its own benefit. But it’s absurd by design.

There is no logical reason that explains the difference between the refusal to condemn antisemitism in isolation and the forbidden declaration of “All Lives Matter” during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. If “Black Lives Matter” must stand alone, why don’t Jewish lives alone also matter? Why must antisemitism get the “All Lives Matter” treatment?

JEWISH LAWMAKERS WORRY FOR SAFETY AFTER ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS: ‘FEELS LIKE OPEN HUNTING SEASON’

Let’s not miss the ultimate trick here: A huge amount of the antisemitism we see in the U.S. today is rooted in radical Islam, which the CAIR is working overtime to dismiss and excuse. When so much antisemitism is inextricably linked to radical Islam, what is the solution? To phrase such antisemitism as simply being anti-genocide, itself an antisemitic slur, and lump antisemitism in with Islamophobia, thereby making the mere accusation of Muslim antisemitism itself Islamophobic.

And the hordes of useful idiots comply because they cannot, as Macdonald noted, risk upsetting radical Islamists by pointing out the truth: that their ideology is antisemitic to its core.

Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist. Follow him on X (@ighaworth) or Substack.